I KNOW, I KNOW there is nothing funny about an armed man stalking women in or near Center City and then fondling their feet at gunpoint, but you've got to admit that from a tabloid newspaperman's sensibilities, the story's got legs. First of all, the notion of a gun-toting toe-tickler is a relief from the grim slaughter that usually accompanies firearms, not to mention crimes of sexual violence.
THAT QUACKING SOUND you hear is actually the clucking of federal prosecutors counting their eggs before they are convicted. Today the feds dropped the net over one of Philadelphia's biggest turkies -- First Brother Milton Street -- who is accused not only of cashing in on his brother's election as mayor seven years by luring businesses seeking city contracts, but of not paying taxes on the two million dollars that fell into his pockets since Mayor John Street was inaugurated.
IF I HAVE TO BE UP this early, I'm going to show you what you missed this morning around 6:45. You know this is my favorite view of Center City framed by Belmont Plateau in Fairmount Park and dominated by that huge (OK, I admit it. I need your help. What kind of tree is that?) oak tree in the foreground. This view of Philadelphia always makes me think that William Penn's dream of 1683 continues to live. He wanted his city to be a "green countrie towne" with a glowing pink sky overhead.
When Martin Luther King was shot and killed in April of 1968, Bobby Kennedy, who was running for president and who would be shot and killed himself two months later, announced Martin's murder to a mostly black crowd during a campaign stop in Indianapolis.
IF LOOKS COULD KILL, I was a dead man based on the look Andre Waters gave me the only time I met him. We met across a crowded room and we never actually shook hands or exchanged words. But the look on his face told me he knew exactly who I was and precisely what he would like to do to me if he got the chance. It wasn't pretty.
ESPECIALLY FOR CUTE GIRLS who pose like this when some stranger with a camera says to them, "Let's do a pal shot." This all happened in a second or two in a bar in Grays Ferry in South Philadelphia where I was shooting pool and where they were decorating the place for Halloween. I suppose I could have futzed around and asked the girls to pose differently. But this was natural. And this was perfect.
Thanks.
I'm speaking at the Union League tomorrow (Wednesday) to a group called the Building Owners and Managers Association, BOMA, which is an organization representing the interests of commercial real estate owners and managers. This is a picture of the the type of public residential housing being built in the shadow of Centrer City high rises. Maybe I'll get a word in. Or two.
Let me tell you what I love about Philadelphia.
Everything.
I must be crazy. I'm the only guy I know who gets upset about stupid internet jokes that get passed around to millions of strangers by well meaning people I know, or don't know, or who just happen to have my email address. What I hate most are the messages that urge me to send the jokes/photos/patriotic messages to "10 people you know -- don't break the chain" or the ones that instruct me to forward the message to "every true (fill in the blank) you know."
IF HE WAS LUCKY a little boy growing up in Philadelphia in the 1960's might have had a grandfather who was a doctor who worked at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Center City Philadelphia. And every now and then that little boy may have been taken to visit his grandfather at his doctor's office. And when he did, the little boy couldn't take his eyes off a painting hanging in the main lobby of the building where his grandfather worked.
I WISH OUR WARS were as nasty, brutish and short as our election campaigns. It's been barely a week since the slime faucet was turned off and our TV and radio commercials returned to flame broiling beef patties instead of human beings. But it takes at least a week for the odor of roasting candidates flesh to leave the nostrils. It's one of those smells -- like napalm in the morning -- you never forget. And no, it doesn't smell like victory as much as roadkill being poked with a stick. The corpse of decency stinks as it decomposes. And in American election campaigns decency is the first casualty.
It was late at night in a pub in the west of Ireland when I first heard this song. This was back in the 80's when singing was not only common, but expected in an Irish bar. The village was Murrisk. the county was Mayo, and the singer was Jackie Byrne, the bartender. Jackie was a bit of a dick, but his voice could make angels weep.
ON THE DAY BEFORE THE ELECTION the students I teach English composition at Montgomery County Community College turned in an assignment I had given them the previous Friday. What prompted the assignment was the answer to the question, "How many of you are registered to vote?" Out of 60 students, mostly freshmen between the ages of 18 and 20, only six were registered to vote.
RUSH LIMBAUGH TRIED to give an optimistic spin on the Democratic voting tsunami through Congress to his near-suicidal audience on the day after Election Day. "You want me to go negative?" Limbaugh rhetorically asked his "base," most of whom were reaching for the pitcher of Jonestown Kool-Aid to toast the Democratic victory. Or as many right-wing reactionaries see it, "the end of civilization as we know it."
YOU KNOW HOW to add 40 minutes to a one-hour commute to work? Trying overturning a trash truck on northbound Rte. 476 in the middle of the morning rush hour. I was just about at Conshohocken on the Schuylkill Expressway about 7:20 Monday morning on my way to teach at Montgomery County Community College, when I heard the radio traffic report that there could be some delays on the Blue Route due to an overturned trash truck. I had the option of exiting at Conshohocken and taking Butler Pike, but I figured, "How big can a trash truck be?"
I TEACH ENGLISH composition classes three days a week at a local college. Most of my students are between 18 and 20 years old and the majority of them have never voted. Based on a show of hands to my question, "How many of you are registered to vote?" most won't vote tomorrow. In one class two students out of 16 present raised their hands.
this is election day This is payback. This is the fury of the inflatable Barney's who excercise their vote to register thier disapproval of the way things are being done. If people aren't pissed off at George Bush by now, well, God love 'em. But don't put one of them next to me on an airplane. Tuesday will be an assault on the Bush presidency by the voters of America the likes of which you would scarce believe.. I plan to be one of them. Don't make me come after you.
IS IT ME or does the arrival of full-blown autumn color seem to come later and later each year in these parts? I don't know if it's global warming or mild weather or what, but I seem to recall as recently as a decade ago the leaves changing color beginning in late September and peaking in mid October. Here we are in the first weekend in November and the leaves have finally given us the "Tah-DAH!" stage of see-ya-next year color (followed quickly by the rake-em-and-weep stage of relentless brown on the ground.)
THE FUNNIEST OBSERVATION Andy Rooney ever had during his thousand year reich as a commentator on 60 Minutes was when noted that a guy with a size seven hat size and a size 17 neck size should be able to pull his dress shirt over his head without unbuttoning the top button. I didn't say it was hilarious but it was funny. And that was, like, 25 years ago.
